Important

Finding the Treasure

“In a way you’ve already won in this world because you’re the only one who can be you.”

Fred Rogers Top 3 Career Aims and Strategies Excerpt for HBS 211

Unedited Version for 2nd Edition of CYC 11/23/2020

© 2018 Billingsly Associates, LLC All Rights Reserved

Top 3 Career Aims and Strategies Guidelines and Examples

Getting Started Hats off to you as you begin this phase of your journey, whether you know or are undecided about what you want to do next. Either way, embracing this process can provide guidance, support, and inspiration for your path ahead. Whether you are certain or still exploring what you want to do, remember there is great value in replacing, “I don’t know what I want to do,” with “I am exploring what I want to do,” or “I am investigating what I want to do,” rather than repeating the old words. This is your opportunity to remain curious, experiment, explore, and discover every step of your journey! Being okay with the temporary “not-knowing phase,” allows you to investigate possibilities and options. Just as in the Bedrock chapter, where defining your purpose brings joy and confidence, by giving your Career Development Plan a form, your dreams begin to unfold, and appear, blossoming into unimagined options, further inspiring your joy and confidence.

“If you can be focused, clear, and remain open to all possibilities, you might be amazed. There’s a certain magic that happens when honesty and clarity join hands.”

CYC Bedrock Chapter page XX The foundational steps to initiating your CDP are to create three very different career aims, design themes, and build strategies that will support your aims for today, this week, this month, and throughout the year(s). As you grow and change, your life and career aims may change. By remaining open to considering all opportunities that come your way, something you had never thought of may appear and be perfect. This discovery process is an abundant journey for those of you who know exactly what you want to do and those who are still exploring. In either situation, it includes re-evaluation, planned and unplanned changes, and tweaking at times. It is independent of whether you are beginning your career, pivoting into a new career, searching for a new job, or exploring the final chapter of your career. This process can enrich every step of your journey, not just the outcome. It can change the entire trajectory of your career. Before beginning, you may want to revisit your answers at the end of the Dream Weaving and Bedrock chapters. Know that it is natural if many of your answers have changed or expanded. You may also want to take an inventory of any serendipitous experiences and

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opportunities that have evolved since experimenting with The Power of Words and The Fundamental 4. Learning to distinguish yourself through resume writing, communicating, interviewing, networking, and other career building skills, you have set the stage for your Career Development Plan framework.

Top Three Career Aims

These are your big picture dreams for your career and life journey. They are not the next step

on your path, or something that you will attain quickly from the perspective of your entire career.

For example, securing an internship, is only part of a top career aim to join a multinational

company in your preferred industry(s), be accepted into their Leadership Development Program,

and through succession planning be promoted into a senior management role. You may be

inspired to expand the internal promotion to the CEO role, and include the path to CEO in other

companies, as Brad discusses below. On the other hand, one of your career strategies may be

to create an entrepreneurial portfolio in preparation of owning your own business someday. See

Jen’s delightful empowering experience in creating her career aims below.

Career Aims are a result of dreaming big. Create a minimum of three different career

aims with emphasis that each is significantly unique to you. Stretch your mind to ensure

each is not a mirror image of another. As you gain various work-life experiences, re-

evaluate and update your CDP, since your career aims may easily shift or change. You

can see below how both Anna F. and Anna P. experienced this while creating their first

CDP.

Before you explore the CYC Alumni successes and experiences, here are some

guidelines to consider while creating your Top Three Career Aims:

▪ Some favorite general career aims are: (1) Creating and maintaining work/life

balance, (2) Building an entrepreneurial portfolio in preparation to becoming self-

employed, (3) Starting a company, (4) Upward mobility in a company or industry,

(5) Corporate or management consulting, (5) Teaching, (6) Pivoting into

something completely new and different like the engineer who wants to become

a nurse, or the human resource executive who wants to change industries.

▪ Even if you know that you want to pursue an accounting career, there are so

many different options that may be part of your dreams: (1) to become an audit

partner in one of the big 4 accounting firms, (2) upward mobility in corporate

accounting, (3) to become a CFO of a non-profit organization, (4) to have your

own accounting firm in 15 years or less, or (5) to teach accounting fulltime, part-

time or as a volunteer.

▪ The key to creating a career aim is to describe each one from a global perspective

with as much detail as you can. Following the accountant theme, see the

difference in the two ways the same career aim is presented:

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 I aim to become an accountant in an accounting firm.

 I aim to join a regional or national accounting firm committed to

professional development and offers upward mobility into an audit

partner role within 15 years or less.

Which career aim has more focus and flexibility at the same time? It’s okay to be

general if you are not ready to be specific, as you paint the pictures of your aims

and dreams.

▪ Be careful to not confuse a career strategy with a career aim. While more detail

regarding strategies follows, here is an example, based upon the accounting

theme:

 I aim to get my CPA one year after receiving my undergraduate degree.

This example is not a career aim, it is a strategy within a professional

development/continuing education career building theme.

 I aim to join a national accounting firm with a strong commitment to

professional development, continuing education, mentoring and upward

mobility into a Partner level role. This is an excellent career aim.

▪ The beauty of your career aims going forward is that they all can happen along

your journey, and in some cases concurrently. As you update and work with your

CDP, new career aims, which fit perfectly for you, can appear instantaneously! In

the above example, many times clients ask their accounting firms’ consultants to

join their organization. Thus, many young accounting firm consultants’ careers

have changed overnight. Many have eventually become CFOs, and maximized

their career options; later returning to consulting or private equity.

Top Three Career Building Themes and Long-Term Strategies

It is now time to select three career building themes to support your top three career aims. As

they evolve, your themes will each be supported by multiple active and some passive

strategies. This is where your creativity infiltrates your themes and strategies, allowing your

unique CDP to take shape. As no two careers or lives are the same, no two individual’s CDPs

are the same.

Designing Career Building Themes

After reviewing your answers to the 2X Active Strategies listed in The Journey, Chapter 13, of

Chart Your Course, ask yourself, are there themes that support your top three career aims?

During every class or coaching session, new themes are created and tailored to the individual.

For purposes of demonstration, here are some themes students and professionals have found

valuable:

▪ Being a Lifelong Learner

▪ Seeking Internal and External Upward Mobility

▪ Creating Work Life Balance

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▪ Designing an Entrepreneurial Portfolio

Again, as you review your answers in The Journey, what strategies appealed to you? What

strategies support your top three themes? Can you create new strategies to support your

themes? How can you integrate networking into all strategies? These and more questions will

come to mind as you begin. Getting started is the key. As with all new ventures, you do not need

to know all the answers or how-to steps before you begin. Being as clear as possible on “what”

you want to do, the “how to steps” have an interesting way of appearing. It is not like fitting jigsaw

puzzle pieces into place. It is like drawing your own picture and cutting out your own puzzle

pieces; and then interlocking them together over time. This is a creative process that requires

curiosity, research, persistence and dedication.

Constructing Career Building Strategies

To assist you in this part of the work, we will expand upon the above career building themes

and select long-term strategies that will support your themes. Your CDP will have a minimum

of 80% active strategies, and no more than 20% passive; with networking integrated into all of

your active strategies.

Since “Being a Lifelong Learner” is a popular theme for many, begin by selecting active long-

term strategies that support this theme:

• Career Building Theme: Being a Lifelong Learner

▪ LT Strategy #1: Choose – Mentorship and Coaching

▪ LT Strategy #2: Explore and Develop – Hard, Soft and Transferable Skills

▪ LT Strategy #3: Engage – Professional Development and Association Resources

▪ LT Strategy #4: Discover – Continuing Education Options

▪ LT Strategy #5: Publish – in Professional Journals, Periodicals, or Online

▪ LT Strategy #6: Speak – at Conferences or through various online options

▪ LT Strategy #7: Create – Step Outside the Box

Select a minimum of three strategies for each theme and be willing to commit 1-3 years or

longer to working each strategy. This includes creating your “designer” strategies noted in CYC

Strategy #21: Be Creative – Step Outside the Box. If during your annual CDP review, you find

that a strategy is not working for you, explore your options. What can you do to learn from your

experience? What can be done to rework the strategy? Is it time to discard the strategy and

replace it with something new?

Integrating Networking into all Strategies

Networking is key to the success of all career building strategies, themes and ultimately your

career aims. After reading Networking Gems, and creating or refining your CNC, you have

gained a newly expanded frame of reference regarding the value of networking. Networking is

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a lifelong building block to professional and personal happiness and success. Integrated into

your CDP, you can experiment with it first-hand and discover the career-transforming results.

Remember that all your active strategies will have networking built in. To illustrate this point,

let’s continue with the previously mentioned Career Building Theme of Being a Lifelong Learner,

and the selected long-term active strategies.

• Career Building Theme: Being a Lifelong Learner

▪ LT Strategy #1: Choose Mentorship and Coaching

 Share your CDP with your mentor asking for constructive feedback.

 What recommendations does your mentor have to stretch further and

hold yourself accountable? Or do you need to perhaps stretch less?

▪ LT Strategy #2: Explore and Develop Hard, Soft and Transferable Skills

 Add your hard, soft and transferable skills inventory from Chapter 6 to

your CDP and create a “wish list” of skills.

 Research profiles of successful professionals that have your “wish list” of

skills and are serving now in the positions of your dreams. Be bold and

arrange for exploratory meetings or calls with them.

▪ LT Strategy #3: Engage – Professional Development and Association Resources

 Get to know board members and senior leadership by researching their

profiles, asking them about their path to success, and how they balanced

these time commitments with work and family.

 Volunteer to assist and serve in all levels of leadership roles.

▪ LT Strategy #4: Discover – Continuing Education Options

 Network with alumni, professional colleagues and others who have

attained the degrees and certifications that you aspire to. What did they

find most valuable? What were their lessons learned?

 Create your own criteria for decision making as you listen and learn.

▪ LT Strategy #5: Publish – in Professional Journals, Periodicals, or Online

 Who in your network is published and what can you learn from their

experience?

 Who may have produced a Podcast?

▪ LT Strategy #6: Speak – at Conferences

 Join a club like Toastmasters

 Seek opportunities at association meetings

▪ LT Strategy #7: Create – Step Outside the Box

 Shadow someone in your network for a day

 Ask to spend a few days in another role in your organization

 Learn how information is gathered or used in up or downstream

departments that you rely upon or feed

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The Art of Tailoring Strategies

As you begin to organize your career aims, themes and strategies, many find the CDP Excel

file at the end of this chapter a good start to customizing your own CDP. There is a worksheet

for your Statement of Purpose and CNC. Each of your three themes and supporting strategies

have a separate worksheet. It is recommended that you write out each strategy in your own

words. They may or may not mirror what is in The Journey chapter, and that is perfectly fine.

There is additional value to using your own words and phrases that come from your heart.

The next step is to determine individual implementation plans for each strategy. The more

detail, even if based on simplicity, provides keys for actionable efforts on your part. As you step

by step design the implementation plans, new and different ideas will come to mind. Think of

this part of the process as if it were a strategic plan you were creating for your business, boss

or professor. For each of your strategies, begin with at least an outline for the Implementation

Plan and add detail as you go forward. Brainstorming and answering the who, what, when,

where and how-to questions can provide a nice kick start. Also consider for each strategy:

o Implementation Plan

o Reasonable and flexible timeframes

o Ways to hold yourself accountable

o List additional resources

o Utilization of tools

o Necessary training

o Certifications required

o Other required support

o Process for re-evaluation

o Next Steps

As your detailed implementation plan evolves, with a conscious effort, you will find ways to

naturally integrate it into your daily, weekly monthly calendar and life. The details are most

important. Holding yourself accountable is key for all. Continual re-evaluation, discussions with

your mentor, and tweaking are the secret sauce. Once you begin this process with dedication,

serendipitous people and ideas may come into your life. You are constantly growing in

partnership with your CDP. Keeping this partnership as a top priority can result in a very

powerful force inspiring multiple next steps along the way. A CDP stuck on a shelf or in a file

will be limited. Initiating and then dropping your efforts is like planting a seed, not watering it,

putting it by the window and hoping the rainwater on the other side will come through the

window “pain.” Other than in the case of a hurricane or burglar, the rain will remain on the other

side.

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CYC is about being proactive. Your CDP is also proactive, flexible, and organic. It truly takes

on a life of its own as you continue to feed and nurture it. Remember to balance and blend

your “to dos” with your work style. By placing as much value on your CDP as you do your work

or school projects, integrating The Fundamental 4 throughout your career, incredible

opportunities can come your way. Although we are only halfway through describing this

navigation process. Get ready now to explore what this all means on a daily, weekly, and

monthly basis. Experience the big picture of giving, receiving, balancing and more!